Trends of road dust emissions contributions on ambient air particulate levels at rural, urban and industrial sites in southern Spain

Abstract

Abstract. The impact of road dust emissions on PM10 and PM2.5 (atmospheric particulate matter with diameteer < 10 μm and 2.5 μm mass concentrations recorded from 2003 to 2010 at 11 locations (rural, urban and industrial) in southern Spain was estimated based on the chemical characterization of PM and the use of a constrained Positive Matrix Factorization, where the chemical profile of local road dust samples is used as a priori knowledge. Results indicate that road dust increased PM10 levels on average by 21–35% at traffic sites, 29–34% at urban background sites heavily affected by road traffic emissions, 17–22% at urban-industrial sites and 9–22% at rural sites. Road dust contributions to ambient PM levels show a marked seasonality with maxima in summer and minima in winter, likely due to the rainfall frequency. Decreasing concentration trends over the sampling years were found at some traffic and urban sites but in most cases the decreases were less significant than for vehicle exhaust emissions, while concentrations increased at industrial sites, probably due to local peculiarities. Concerning PM2.5, road dust contributions were lower than in PM10, as expected but still important (21–31%, 11–31%, 6–16% and 7% for traffic, urban background, urban-industrial and rural sites, respectively). In addition the three main sources of road dust (carbonaceous particles, brake wear and road wear/mineral) were identified and their contributions to road dust mass loadings estimated, supporting the idea that air quality managers should drive measures aimed at preventing the build-up of road dust particles on roads.

Assessment of bioaerosol pollution over Indo-Gangetic plain

“…The concentration of PM 10 and PM 2.5 at present site is also compared with studies reported at other sites (Table 1). It has been seen that the concentration at the present suburban site is higher than the urban, and rural sites of the Spain (Amato et al 2014) while lower than the suburban site of China (Li et al 2008). The high load of aerosol in India may be due to the fact that India is a developing country while the Spain is a developed where proper attention has been given to concern of air pollution.…”

“…Matthias-Maser and Jaenicke (1995) stated that over Amazon rainforest, bioaerosol account for as much as 74 % of the total aerosol number concentration, with fungal spores contributing 30-50 %. Although biological components contribute 20 % load of aerosol, the biological fraction of ambient particulate matter can potentially cause significant health effects (Schneider et al 1997;Miguel et al 1999;Boreson et al 2004;Lee et al 2012;Amato et al 2014). Indo-Gangetic plain is experiencing a very drastic change in seasonal patterns with extreme cold in winter, extreme hot periods in the summer, and small monsoon periods with reduced rain events, increase of the aerosol loading in the last few decades, and increase of different epidemic diseases, e.g., malaria, typhoid, pneumonia, chickengunia, and monkeygunia and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, etc.…”

Characterization of Fine Particulate Matter Emitted from the Resuspension of Road and Pavement Dust in the Metropolitan Area of São Paulo, Brazil

“…In its emissions profile database (SPECIATE 4.0), the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) presented a composite of five paved road dust profiles from the cities of San Antonio and Laredo, Texas (BVPVRD01, BVPVRD02, BVPVRD03, BVPVRD04 and BVPVRD05). Amato et al [27] analyzed road dust at different sites in Spain and compiled a profile for an urban site in the city of Seville. Table 4 compares the urban profile for the MASP (derived from the present study), the EPA composite urban profile, and the urban profile for Seville.…”

First Results of the “Carbonaceous Aerosol in Rome and Environs (CARE)” Experiment: Beyond Current Standards for PM10

“…Estimated emission factors showed values within 39-137 mg VKT −1 (vehicle kilometer travelled −1 ), with a mean value of 63 mg VKT −1 , in the central range observed across Europe [40,41,67]. For OC and EC, mean emission factors due to resuspension were 5.0 and 1.4 mg VKT −1 , respectively.…”

“…Sedimented road dust with a diameter <10 microns (RD10) loadings showed small spatial variability across the sampling sites (0.68-1.35 mg · m −2 ) and in the lower range of European cities [40,41,67]; an exception was site 10, where the higher value (3.2 mg · m −2 ) was probably due to the poor state of the pavement. Based on the formula proposed by [40], the emission factors (EFs) were calculated as (Equation (13)):…”